But no matter what deal he made with the devil by the dark of the moon, the next day nothing changed. It didn’t matter how hard Kate tried to please him, Langston could not bring himself to relent. And God love her, Kate did try to please him.
The hell of it was that Langston couldn’t be prouder of his oldest daughter. Kate was born to work the land. She was every inch a ranch woman, rising well before the sun and pulling her weight better than any man on the place, himself included. After her mama died, Kate did as she was told. She raised her sisters, kept the house clean, got supper on the table, and still put in a full day's work with the hands.
Sometimes from a distance Langston admired his girl, the easy strength in her slender body, the calm confidence when she shouldered a rifle or swung into the saddle. Nothing in boot leather scared his Katie, probably because she barely troubled herself with the rest of the human race.
When she wasn't working, Kate was reading or walking alone in the deepening night untroubled by the sounds in the brush around her. Langston knew what she was doing, soothing her inner storms with the peace of the rugged land around her.
He had his own place of refuge on the ranch, hidden away, high up in the rocky ridge to the east of the house called Baxter’s Draw. He didn’t want his girls to go up there, but he suspected Milton was right. They would find out about everything now. Sick misery washed through him. What was he going to do?
Suddenly Langston realized Milton was right. There were some things a man shouldn’t see or hear, including his own funeral. He wanted nothing so much as to be back at the ranch. As soon as the desire rose in his heart, he felt the transition start. As the scene at the church began to fade around him, Langston heard Kate say, “Langston Lockwood was a hard and difficult man . . . ”
Had he stayed a few minutes longer, Langston would have heard his daughter tell the congregation something every person in the sanctuary except her sisters found difficult to believe.
“I’m not going to tell you that I understood my father,” she said. “I'm not going to stand in God's house and tell you I even liked the man, but I did love him.”
By the time those words were spoken, the shade of Langston Lockwood was leaning on a pasture gate on the Rocking L. As he gazed up toward Baxter’s Draw, he realized that he was no more in control of his destiny in death than he had been in life.
The odyssey that began for Langston in the winter of 1958 was not over. His thoughts strayed to the worn copy of Marcus Aurelius he’d kept in his top desk drawer. “Willingly give thyself up to Clotho, one of the Fates, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever things she pleases.”
The Fates weren’t done with him, and it was just his damned luck that every one of them was a woman.
To be continued . . .
Part VIII
Short Story - Langston’s Ghost: Limbo to Lust
Chapter 138
Langston Lockwood had only ever loved one woman, Alice Browning. He watched her die on an icy December night in 1957 and spent the rest of his life denying her absence. Now, in the wake of his suicide, Langston found himself forced to confront the startling lucidity of eternity.
In the split second it had taken him to pull the trigger of his antique Colt .45, Langston's perspective simply changed. One minute he was in his body, and the next he was watching his own blood pool in the soft dirt of the barn floor.
Then, the most unlikely of companions came walking out of the shadows, his own father, Milton Lockwood. In death, the two men shared their first truly civil conversation. In the hours that followed, however, Langston was forced to admit that he no longer controlled events on the Rocking L, the ranch that had been his reclusive domain since Milton’s death in 1958.
Langston could do nothing but watch as his daughters came home to the land of their raising and made peace with one another. Kate and Jenny didn’t hear his growl of frustration when they stood over the spot where he died and agreed to bury more than their father the day of the funeral.
He couldn’t believe his eyes when Jenny, who had lived in New York City for more than a decade, saddled Horsefly with practiced hands and rode up to Baxter’s Draw to investigate a circling column of buzzards.
Hope welled in Langston’s heart when the girls quarreled over the terms of the will, balking at the idea of living on the Rocking L for life. But then, to his rage and consternation all three of them -- even citified, fashion-conscious Mandy -- sat drinking ice tea on the back porch and agreed to give the arrangement a try.
It didn’t look like the State of Texas would be getting the ranch any time soon, and Langston appeared to have no power over the things his girls were about to uncover from the past. That didn’t mean, however, that he had to listen to a damn word of it.
Langston had taken to standing for what he supposed were long hours leaning on the pasture gate staring up at Baxter’s Draw. But in this dimension, the meaning of time was nothing but a remnant of past understanding. If Langston chose to do so, he could be anywhere within his former frame of reference witnessing any event he liked.
At first that idea appealed to him as entertaining, but then his habitual refusal to resolve any cognitive dissonance in his mind flared back to life. They could all go to hell. He might be dead, but he was still in Texas, he was still on his ranch, and Langston Lockwood didn’t intend to change a damn thing about how he saw the world of the living.
It was in that very spot, at the pasture gate, that Langston realized the Fates were not done with him. He’d just chosen not to listen to Kate deliver his eulogy at the Methodist Church, and was contemplating the damned annoyance that was all womankind, when a woman’s voice interrupted his sardonic reverie.
The voice belonged to the one woman he had hoped never to see or hear again. His late wife, Irene. Her northern accent grated on his ears when she asked, in a tone so pleasant it sent old warning bells sounding like claxons in his mind, “Are you enjoying your death, Langston?”
He turned slowly and regarded the figure standing behind him. In spite of himself, some echo of a physical reaction stirred in his non corporeal form. Langson could not deny that Irene was beautiful. Time had frozen her as she was at the moment of their first meeting. Young and genteelly aristocratic in the way of old money.
Irene exuded a cool sensuality that Langston had once found almost as attractive as his plan to steal her from his boyhood friend and would-be U.S. Senator George Fisk. After all, exacting revenge with an attractive woman was far more pleasant than being forced to bed a hag.
In death, the bloom of good health filled Irene’s cheeks once again. Gone were the sunken, sallow features of a cancer patient. A mane of reddish dark hair fell casually over her shoulders and appealing curves rounded the length of her slender figure.
The slight lasciviousness of his appraisal was not lost on Irene. She stood unflinching under his gaze, clearly following the path of his thoughts.
Embarrassed and irritated at having his mind so easily read, Langston snapped, “What in the hell are you doing here?”
Irene laughed. “Hell would be the operative term, wouldn’t it, dear husband?” she asked, her eyes twinkling brightly.
“Don’t talk in riddles, Irene,” he scowled. “If you have something to say to me, say it. And then leave me the hell alone. I don’t want a damn thing to do with you. The day you died was the happiest day of my life.”
“How little you’ve changed,” she said, still smiling. “Undressing me with your eyes and lashing me with your tongue.”
Langston drew his brows together in a glower. “I should have lashed you with more than my tongue.”
At his words, a chilling column of air washed over Langston. It seemed to come from Irene herself, born of an icy resolve that struck a familiar and uncomfortable chord with her choleric husband.
“Are your forgetting what happened the one time you did threaten me with physical harm?” she asked.
As if he were reliving the moment,
Langston heard the four-note steel melody of a Colt being cocked. He felt the gun barrel just behind his ear, and heard the menacing promise in his wife's silken whisper. The vibrantly projected memory made Langston go still and careful, like a prey animal in the presence of a predator.
“Ah,” Irene said, watching his face. “I see you do remember. Good. Now, tell me, dear Langston, have you given the slightest consideration to where you really are?"
Langston shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the next, chewing at his lip. He nursed a vague apprehension that this conversation was about to turn even more unpleasant. Calling on the ability his father taught him to shift locations, Langston tried to leave, only to find himself rooted and immobile where he stood.
"Don't exert yourself," Irene said amiably. "You have no choice but to talk to me. Did you think that you were going to be made to do nothing here but watch our daughters clean up your mess? Your arrogant, self-serving limitations are showing, dear."
The words made Langston grit his teeth. He had expected to simply witness the aftermath of his suicide. Even as painful as he might find some of the revelations, he was, after all, dead. He'd begun to think of the whole thing as just a television show he could turn on and off at will. He should have known it wasn't going to be that easy.
Sighing, Langston answered her. "Daddy thinks we're in hell,” he said, “but I think it might be purgatory."
Irene arched an eyebrow questioningly. "When did you start believing in such religious concepts?" she asked. "For as long as I knew you, your only relationship with God was damning his name."
Langston’s scowl deepened. "I see that being dead hasn't worn down that damned Yankee superiority of yours," he grumbled.
This time when Irene laughed, the sound came alive, dancing around them with such physicality Langston had to fight the urge to duck defensively. "Oh Langston," she said merrily. "How I have been looking forward to this day! You are not in hell, nor are you in purgatory."
"Fine," he said. "Then where am I?"
"At the moment, you are in limbo," Irene answered. "You do remember your Dante, don't you? Benton Browning will be even more disappointed in you than he already is if you've completely forgotten your classics."
Langston’s temper flared. "Don't talk about a man you never met," he barked. "Benton was my friend and my teacher. He was not disappointed in me."
"In life he wasn't," Irene agreed pleasantly, "but he's been very disappointed in how you wasted your talents and your time on earth. He and I were just discussing it while we watched you commit suicide."
Langston glanced around, but they were completely alone. "You're lying," he snapped.
"Go right ahead and tell yourself that if it makes you feel better," Irene said. "Now, I asked you a question. Do you remember your Dante?"
"If you're talking about The Inferno," Langston said, "yes, I remember the goddamned book. Limbo is the first circle of hell."
"And what souls are consigned to reside in that circle?"
Langston furrowed his brow. "Unbaptized children and virtuous pagans."
"Excellent," Irene said, "which is why this is not where you will be spending eternity."
Laughing harshly, Langston said, "Now I know you’re lying. If this is limbo then what is my father doing here? He was just as big a bastard as I ever thought about being."
With no warning, the scene dissolved around them and the living room at the old Rocking L ranch house came into focus. Langston's parents, Milton and Sarah Lockwood, stood awkwardly on either side of the oval braided rug.
"It's not much," Milton said, turning the hat in his hand, the revolutions jerky and nervous. "But nobody's gonna beat you here or . . . do anything else to you. Not like your Daddy did. I'm not much of a man, Sarah, but I don't hold with the likes of that kind of behavior."
Sarah, who was clearly years younger than Milton, said in a small voice, "But you'll use me that way. Same as he did."
"No," Milton said earnestly. "I won't. If you'll do one thing for me, I'll never lay a hand on you again."
She looked at him suspiciously. "What's that?"
"I want a son," Milton said. When her expression darkened, he added hastily. "I won't hurt you, Sarah. I just can't let the Rocking L go to the Baxters because I don't have an heir. Please just help me do this one thing and that's it. I won't expect anything else from you like that."
"You're a man," Sarah said bitterly. "All men expect to use their women."
"I don't," Milton said. "I've lived alone all these years because I wanted to. If you say no, I won't force you. And you can still stay here. I'm not going to send you back to your daddy and your brothers."
"Supposing I was to say yes," she said, bitterly, "how will you know it's even yours?"
"Well," Milton said, "we can wait to be sure. And that would give you some time to see that I mean what I say. Would that be alright?"
Sarah nodded, but she still looked uncertain.
"Good," Milton said. "So, that's your bedroom through that door and I sleep at the back of the house. I put a sliding lock on your door, but I promise you won't need it. Why don't you get yourself settled in and we'll have some supper."
"You want me to cook it?" she asked sullenly.
"No," he answered. "I put a pot of stew on this morning, but I warn you, I'm not much of a cook. You may just make up your mind real fast to take over the kitchen."
In spite of herself, Sarah smiled.
Langston turned to Irene. "Why are you showing me this?" he asked.
"Patience, Langston," she counseled. "Watch."
The scene playing out before them sped up. They watched as Milton and Sarah came in and out of their rooms. Sarah's haggard appearance slowly faded and she began to put on weight. The hair that had hung loosely around her shoulders in unkept tangles was pinned up neatly in a bun. With each passing second the house became cleaner and small touches of a woman's influence materialized. The windows that had been open to the summer breeze closed and a warm fire sprang to life in the fireplace.
Time slowed down to its normal progression again and Sarah looked up from the novel she was reading. Milton was sitting in his chair across the room quietly mending a piece of harness. "Milton?" she said.
He looked up. "Yes?"
"You haven't lied to me," she said simply. "You've done everything you promised me that you would do. I'll give you a child."
Milton put down the bit of tack. "Thank you.” He hesitated, stammering when he asked, “How . . . uh . . . I mean . . . when . . ."
This time the smile that Sarah gave him was genuine. "I think tonight would be fine." She stood up and held out her hand. Milton got to his feet, entwined her fingers in his own, and followed her into the bedroom.
Langston watched the door close slowly. "That's how I came to be in this world?" he asked.
"Yes," Irene said. "You were born nine months after this night."
He frowned, considering what they’d witnessed. "But I don't understand,” he said. “My parents slept in the same bed."
"Your father honored his word," Irene answered, "but your mother shared a room with him to save him his pride, which was considerable. They were not in love, and at times, they may not have even been friends. But they were companions for the rest of their lives, which is more than you and I can say for one another."
"So you're telling me that just because my father saved Mama from being abused, he bought himself out of hell?" Langston asked scornfully.
"Not entirely," Irene said. "Milton will walk the earth for eternity caught in the dimension of limbo. He is being made to face the consequences of his life, and now it's time for you to address your own bill."
"At your hands?" Langston asked, a note of unease creeping into his belligerent tones.
"Let's just say I'm your tour guide," Irene said, "and your witness."
"So what are you, the Ghost of Christmas Past?" Langston snarled. "I never liked Dickens and I don't answer to you,
Irene. Not now any more than I did when we were alive."
"Oh, but you do answer to me," Irene said, as once again the setting around them began to dissolve slowly, melting under the force of a growing heat. "And no, I am not the Ghost of Christmas Past. I am something far worse than that amusing literary construct. I am the ghost of a woman scorned.”
A nauseating wave of vertigo sent Langston to his knees. He choked and clawed at the collar of his shirt as bile filed his throat.
Irene looked down at him impassively. “What is the second circle of hell, Langston?" she asked calmly.
Caught in the vortex of swirling, lurid colors, Langston coughed, gasping for air only to recoil in horror as he brought his gore-stained hands up before his eyes. If he couldn't get a deep breath soon, he'd cough up his own lungs.
“Answer me,” Irene commanded. “What is the second circle of hell?”
“Lust,” Langston whispered wetly. “The second circle of hell is lust.”
“Very good,” she said approvingly. “Let us examine the topic of lust in greater detail, shall we?"
Mercifully the scene righted itself again and Langston could breathe. He raised his shaking hands only to find them dry and clean. Swiveling his head to take his bearings, he balked openly. "No," he said, immediately understanding where she had taken him. "I will not see this."
"Do you think I like seeing it either?" Irene asked. "This was our wedding night. The only time I knew you as a tender, passionate man. Watch us making love, Langston. Listen. And then explain this to me."
She wheeled toward the bed as the room lightened with the rays of a long-ago dawn. There, her younger self cringed against the headboard, clutching a sheet to cover her nakedness, long, auburn hair tousled and falling over her bare shoulders.
With tears streaking her cheeks, that phantom Irene pleaded with her new husband. "Langston, please, you can't mean these things."
The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories Page 95